The reconfiguration of the Asian electronics production networks and regional evolution in the geopolitics and risks of the global economy

The changing geopolitics and heightened risks in the global economy has triggered the reconceptualizing strategic coupling of regional development in the Global Production Networks (GPN) theory. Despite an increasing attention paid to geopolitics and risk-driven decoupling discourse in international political economy, relatively little research has been conducted on the evolution of local economic development in the geopolitics and risk-induced reconfiguration of global and cross-border production networks of transnational corporations (TNCs). Drawing upon the author's years of on-site investigation including personal interviews with various stakeholders during the mid-2010s and early 2020s, this study explores the changing dynamics and reconfiguration of the cross-border mobile phone production relocation from China's coastal regions to the emerging regions in Vietnam.